Dear clamoring reader(s)

:)

I start and end with Ms. Anne Lamott's genius: "Life is terribly time consuming." Agreed. Life has been full of new schedules and all the things that life becomes. Since I last wrote:

-Obama appears poised to make a real go of it (GET OUT AND VOTE ON NOV 4!!!!)

-The new job has begun and it's great. The people at the University of Kansas Hospital are incredibly smart and professional. I had my first event last week and it went well. I'm getting used to totally new systems AND the fact that my wardrobe needed a serious business upgrade. No jeans EVER. For real.

-I'm trying to dig myself out of merely existing. I've been kicking a cold for a week or so now and with all these changes, I get home and camp out on the couch for a few hours. It's not making me smarter, but it is getting me caught up on Heroes. Which you should all start watching.

-To that end, I'm hoping to revive the old flames of my fall inspiration with getting my hands on some Wendell Berry and sitting outside for a bit. Nature brings me back to myself and reminds me of how big God is.

-Mr. Man and I are getting into a really fantastic time. We know each other's foibles and quirks. (We love and are loved in return as Mr. Berry would say.) In the midst of this, because we live together (in sin, some assert), we're facing some pretty craptastic scrutiny from people I haven't given permission to. So we're loving each other harder, giving thanks for those of you that love us, even if you wouldn't make the same choice, and we are remembering that God loves the mess out of us no matter what.

-So, we end in a place of hope and faith. For political hope. For a new job that fulfills. For a love that flourishes and is appreciated. We go on as Anne Lammot asserts: "Hope begins in the dark, the stubborn hope that if you just show up and try to do the right thing, the dawn will come. You wait and watch and work: you don't give up."

Indeed.